Doug Berman wrote the intro to the issue. He begins, "The Supreme Court's 1987 ruling in McCleskey v. Kemp was widely condemned when first handed down, and the passage of time has hardly softened the critical appraisal." He moves in different circles than I do. The decision was and continues to be "widely condemned" on the political left and in academia, the latter being close to a proper subset of the former. Among those fighting for justice in the worst murder cases, the opinion is regarded as both necessary and correct.